Portsmouth does the clean up after Monday’s whopper storm

Babs Benn, with Prescott Park in Portsmouth, stamps down a second truckload of branches cleaned up in the park on Tuesday. Limbs and leaves were scattered throughout the park following a powerful storm on Monday afternoon, but no buildings or vehicles were damaged. (GRETYL MACALASTER PHOTO)

PORTSMOUTH — Residents, businesses and public works crews took advantage of Tuesday morning’s sunshine to clean up from a Monday afternoon storm that plowed through the city.

Storm drains clogged with leaves and debris were cleared, tree limbs and branches were cut up and moved out of driveways, roadways and backyards and trucks were piled with lawn debris and delivered to the city’s trash and recycling center.

Meteorologist Bob Marine with the National Weather Service said wind speeds of 62 miles per hour were officially recorded at the height of the powerful thunderstorm. He said the thunderstorms that came through Portsmouth were the strongest of all the storms to come through the state on Monday.

In Prescott Park, a handful of people filled three truckloads with leaves and branches that had fallen throughout the park during the storm.

Babs Benn, who works at Prescott Park, said the good news was that no roofs, buildings or vehicles were damaged by the falling limbs. The bad news was that there were a lot of fallen limbs.

The Prescott Park Arts Festival is currently setting up the main stage for this summer’s festival, which kicks off on June 28.

At one time, about 6,000 city residents were without power on Monday, but almost all power had been restored by Tuesday morning.

“It was a very big storm. Thank goodness it was brief and the day after is nice so there is plenty of time to come clean up the mess,” Benn said.